Published 18 December 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a3027
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a3027

Editor's Choice

Everything you know is wrong

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The hit of last year’s Christmas issue was Rachel Vreeman and Aaron Carroll’s demolition of medical myths, which garnered 21 A4 pages of media mentions within a month of publication. This year the same authors target myths with a seasonal flavour (doi:10.1136/bmj.a2769). A dispiriting message is that there are still no genuine hangover cures—other than to consume alcohol only in moderation or not at all. At this time of year, it may be a small consolation to know that you can mix alcohol with antibiotics (other than metronidazole), although most attenders at a London clinic still mistakenly believe that you shouldn’t (doi:10.1136/bmj.a2885).

The debunking of myths emerges as the main theme of this year’s Christmas issue. Welshman Gareth Payne and colleagues use sophisticated epidemiological tools to disprove the urban myth that every time Wales win the rugby grand slam, a Pope dies—except for 1978, when Wales . . . [Full text of this article]

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